Investing In CSR Pays You Back in Many Ways! The Case of Perceptual, Attitudinal and Behavioral Outcomes of Customers

Abstract

Researchers and scholars have widely attributed corporate social responsibility (CSR) to enormous outcomes. However, the customer-specific outcomes are either less investigated or lack clarity. By focusing on perceptual, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes of CSR, this study entails that CSR influences customers’ citizenship behavior (behavioral outcome) both directly and indirectly (through service quality and affective commitment—perceptual and attitudinal outcomes). Survey data collected from 669 fast-food restaurant customers were analyzed through the structural equation modeling technique. The results revealed a positive and significant relationship between restaurants’ CSR efforts and customers’ behavioral responses in terms of citizenship behavior. Findings also highlight that CSR does not only have a direct relation but the sequential mediation mechanism also exists. The study extends the existing literature by focusing on the ignored causal link of CSR and customer citizenship behavior (CCB) by considering the service quality and affective commitment as an explanatory mechanism, and provides certain practical implications which could also be useful for managers of the restaurant industry to devise their socially responsible practices.